Friend,
This isn’t the email I wanted to write.
Over the last two weeks, our movement showed up. Together, we made more than 800 phone calls to key legislators. We sent thousands of emails. Faith leaders pleaded for lawmakers to treat life as sacred. Doctors asked for some relief from treating bullet wounds in adults, teenagers, and children.
So many of you poured your pain, grief, anger, energy, and hope into the work of passing four critical gun safety measures on the House floor. With these bills, our elected leaders had an opportunity to save lives, prevent mass shootings, and help give law enforcement a fighting chance against people who wish to do us harm.
They failed to do so.
Measures that would have created Extreme Risk Protection Orders and banned untraceable firearms in Pennsylvania failed by a single vote. Friend, our movement came up short today. While I am thankful that a bipartisan bill that closes loopholes in the state’s background check law passed, that passage was the absolute bare minimum our legislators could do.
There’s no purpose in trying to give you false comfort, so I’m going to be direct: More people will be harmed. Because our legislators voted “no” on Extreme Risk Protection Orders and a ban on untraceable firearms, more Pennsylvanians will die from gun violence.
Voting “no” was a vote for more suicides by firearm, more plastic guns in our schools, and more police officers in mortal danger at the scene of domestic violence calls. Voting “no” made our homes, our schools, our communities more dangerous. Voting “no” put gun industry profits ahead of our lives and safety.
Now, we have two choices: We can let the defeat of this moment destroy our hope for a future free from gun violence. Or we can allow our anger at the political games, the cowardice, and the lost lives serve as fuel as we get back up and keep fighting.
We are right to be angry, friend. We’re angry at the lives lost. We’re angry that some politicians ignored evidence, passionate testimonies, and their own consciences to vote against our safety. I am honestly sickened that 102 members of the Pennsylvania House refused to make us safer.
